Between Floors
What is it?
The elevator doors were closing when Raymond Cooper hurried across the hotel lobby and slipped between them.
"Thanks," he said to the woman standing beside the control panel.
She was perhaps fifty, dressed in a gray business suit, with a leather handbag hanging from one shoulder. She smiled politely and pressed the button for the eighth floor.
"Long day?" she asked.
"You have no idea."
Raymond leaned against the mirrored wall and checked his phone. His wife had sent another message asking when he'd be home. He typed Tomorrow afternoon. He typed, " Love you," and slipped the phone into his pocket.
The elevator passed the third floor.
The woman made a small choking sound.
Raymond looked up.
Her handbag hit the carpet.
For one impossible instant, her face seemed to flatten, as though someone had pressed it against a sheet of glass. Her shoulders widened. Her arms stretched sideways, growing thinner and longer until they disappeared into the expanding blackness of her suit.
Raymond stumbled backward.
The woman was no longer a woman.
Something enormous and impossibly thin unfolded from where she had stood, a rippling black membrane that filled the elevator from wall to wall. It moved like a blanket caught in a violent wind, except there was no wind, and the darkness seemed to have weight.
Raymond screamed.
The blackness struck him before he could reach the emergency button.
He felt it wrap around his head, slide between his teeth, and force its way into his throat. His arms were pinned against his sides. Something cold pressed against his eyes.
Then everything stopped.
The elevator chimed.
The doors opened on the eighth floor.
Raymond stepped out.
He straightened his jacket, glanced at the room numbers, and walked toward 814.
Behind him, the woman's handbag lay on the elevator floor.
He didn't look back.
⁂
Three days later, Raymond's wife noticed that he no longer slept.
At first, Claire thought he was exhausted. His business trip had been unusually stressful, and he'd returned home quieter than normal. But on Thursday night, she woke at two in the morning to find him standing in the hallway, facing the bedroom door.
"Raymond?"
He turned immediately.
"Couldn't sleep."
"Then come back to bed."
He smiled and followed her.
His skin was cold when he slipped beneath the covers.
On Friday, their golden retriever, Bailey, refused to enter the living room while Raymond was there. The dog stood in the doorway with his hackles raised, making a low, frightened sound Claire had never heard before.
Raymond watched him without expression.
"What's wrong with the dog?" he asked.
"I don't know. Maybe he's sick."
"Maybe."
That afternoon, Claire found Bailey hiding behind the washing machine.
By Saturday morning, the dog was gone.
Raymond said the back gate had been open.
Claire searched the neighborhood for hours, calling Bailey's name until her voice grew hoarse. Raymond offered to help, but she noticed he never once called for the dog.
⁂
The first video appeared online Sunday evening.
A security camera in a downtown parking garage captured a man walking toward his car. Another man approached him from behind. The two exchanged a few words.
Then the second man changed.
His body widened into a vast black shape that swept across the concrete floor and climbed the surrounding walls. The first man disappeared beneath it.
The recording lasted eleven seconds.
When the darkness withdrew, both men were standing beside the car.
One walked toward the exit. The other climbed into the driver's seat.
Neither appeared injured.
Most viewers dismissed the footage as a sophisticated fake.
Then another video surfaced.
And another.
In Chicago, a restaurant server vanished inside a storage room. Her coworker entered with her and emerged alone, carrying two trays of clean glasses.
In London, a woman disappeared on a subway platform. Security footage showed her stepping into a stranger's shadow. Moments later, she walked away in the opposite direction, although her husband later insisted that the woman who returned home wasn't his wife.
In Seattle, a little boy told police that his grandfather had become a giant black blanket and swallowed the mailman.
The grandfather denied everything.
The mailman couldn't be found.
⁂
Detective Marta Hilcks watched the parking garage recording for the sixth time.
"Stop it there," she told the technician.
The image froze just before the blackness withdrew.
"Zoom in."
The technician enlarged the picture.
Marta leaned closer.
Two faces appeared in the darkness.
One belonged to the man who had been attacked.
The other belonged to the attacker.
Both appeared to be screaming.
"Play it forward."
The darkness collapsed.
Two men stood beside the car.
Marta felt the hair on her arms rise.
"Where did the second man go afterward?"
"Home. Wife, two kids. Works in accounting."
"And the first?"
"He's missing again. Disappeared yesterday."
"Where?"
The technician hesitated.
"His daughter's bedroom."
Marta looked at him.
"His daughter?"
"She's missing too."
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then the technician's phone rang.
He listened, his expression changing.
"What?" Marta demanded.
He lowered the phone.
"There's been another one. At the hospital."
"Another disappearance?"
"Twenty-three."
⁂
By Wednesday, hospitals were overwhelmed.
Patients arrived claiming that their spouses had changed, their children were behaving strangely, or strangers had unfolded into enormous sheets of darkness before returning to human form.
Doctors found nothing physically wrong with those who had supposedly transformed.
Their blood tests were normal.
Their heart rates were normal.
Their fingerprints matched.
One physician in Boston was examining a patient when the man suddenly flattened against the examination table, spreading outward in a black wave that covered the doctor, the nurse, and the ceiling.
The security camera recorded the entire incident.
Four minutes later, the examination room door opened.
The doctor walked out first.
The nurse followed.
Then the patient.
All three appeared perfectly healthy.
By evening, the nurse had gone home to her family.
The doctor had returned to work.
The patient checked into a hotel.
⁂
The emergency broadcast began at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time.
Authorities urged citizens to remain indoors, avoid unnecessary contact, and report unusual behavior. Airports suspended operations. Schools closed. Hospitals restricted visitors.
Nobody could explain how the condition spread.
Nobody knew who was affected.
And nobody understood why some victims returned while others disappeared completely.
At a military command center outside Washington, officials watched footage from a crowded train station.
One passenger transformed.
Then another.
Then six more.
Within seconds, the platform became a churning mass of blackness. It rolled over benches, climbed pillars, and engulfed hundreds of screaming people.
The cameras went dark.
When the feed returned, the platform was crowded again.
People picked up their luggage.
A woman adjusted her scarf.
A little boy held his father's hand.
Then they walked away in different directions.
One of the officers watching whispered, "They're spreading."
Nobody answered.
There was nothing left to say.
⁂
Claire sat on the living room sofa with her eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, tucked beneath her arm.
The television showed a news anchor seated behind a desk. Her voice trembled slightly as she read the latest emergency instructions.
"Officials are asking everyone to remain calm. If someone in your household exhibits unusual behavior, do not approach them. Contact emergency services immediately."
Claire glanced toward the kitchen.
Raymond had stood at the counter for nearly an hour, staring out the darkened window.
He hadn't eaten dinner.
He hadn't eaten breakfast either.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually seen him eat.
"Raymond?"
He turned.
"Yes?"
"Are you feeling okay?"
"Of course."
His smile was warm and familiar.
For a moment, Claire felt foolish.
Then she noticed something.
The kitchen light was directly above him, but his shadow stretched across the floor in the wrong direction.
It moved.
Just slightly.
As though something beneath it had taken a breath.
"Come sit with us," she said.
Raymond walked into the living room and settled into his favorite chair.
Sophie pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders.
On the television, the news anchor paused.
Someone off-camera shouted.
The woman turned toward the sound.
For a fraction of a second, a black shape moved behind her.
The broadcast cut to an emergency warning screen.
Claire reached for the remote.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Why was that lady's shadow moving when she wasn't?"
Claire stared at the television.
"It's probably just the lighting."
Sophie shook her head.
"But Mommy, Daddy's shadow does that too."
Claire slowly turned toward her husband.
Raymond was sitting perfectly still.
He looked at her with the same gentle expression he'd worn when they first met.
Then he smiled.
His face began to flatten.
His shoulders widened.
His arms stretched outward, growing thinner and longer as his body unfolded into an enormous sheet of living blackness.
Claire grabbed Sophie's hand.
The darkness struck.
For an instant, Claire could hear her daughter screaming. Then she heard something else, hundreds of voices, thousands perhaps, all whispering from somewhere inside the suffocating blackness.
Some were begging.
Some were laughing.
And one voice, horribly familiar, was calling her name.
"Claire."
It was Raymond.
The real Raymond.
Then the voices stopped.
⁂
The following morning, Claire opened the front door and stepped into the sunshine.
Sophie followed, carrying her school backpack.
Raymond came out behind them and locked the door.
Across the street, their neighbor waved.
"Beautiful morning!"
Claire smiled.
"Isn't it?"
The neighbor bent to pick up his newspaper.
His shadow moved before he did.
Claire watched it for a moment.
Then she took Sophie's hand, and the family walked toward their car.
There were so many people they hadn't seen in a while.
So many friends to visit.
And they were all terribly, terribly hungry.
THE END
© 2026 Susan (Susie) Hanson. All rights reserved. This is an original work of fiction. No portion may be reproduced or distributed without written permission.
